The Final Word

Like a Barbie Dreamvette under the tree, Megyn Kelly is the kind of gift that keeps on giving.

“For you kids watching at home,” Kelly said last week, during her prime-time TV show, The Kelly File, on Fox News Channel. “Santa just is white. But this person is arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa.”

But wait, there’s more.

“Jesus was a white man, too,” Kelly said. “It’s like we have, he’s a historical figure that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this either . . . but Megyn Kelly is right. Hold on for a second. I think I just suffered a mild stroke behind my right eye.

Santa and Jesus ARE white. No, no, not the real Santa and Jesus. That’s idiotic nonsense blathered by a vacuous, hair-sprayed buffoon.

The real Santa was based on a man of Greek descent named St. Nicholas, a third-century bishop living in what is now Turkey. Still, 99 percent of every Santa you see depicted in advertisements and greeting cards is rosy cheeked and pinker than a Christmas ham, merrily drinking a Coke or shilling for Target.

So much of the “spirit of Christmas” is a convoluted, confusing mess anyway. Trees inside our houses? Lights on the outside? It’s supposed to feel better to give gifts than to receive them? At this point, Santa might as well be a flying six-toed backup dancer for Lady Gaga.

As for Jesus—the “real” Jesus, not the one you scream whenever you stub your toe or Pau Gasol bricks a free throw—he was definitely Middle Eastern. That’s plain ol’ geography.

A guy born in Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago before planes, trains and automobiles? There’s a pretty good chance he’s not going to look like Ryan Gosling or Tom Brady.

But the “other” Jesus, the one you see inside children’s Bibles, and those brochures that get pressed into your hand, and the one I pray to before I get lab test results and whenever my annual performance review is due? I usually imagine that guy as a white dude, too—in all the beatific frescoed majesty Megyn Kelly describes.

That Jesus is the one I asked into my heart repeatedly after a Baptist minister terrified my kindergarten class with tales of sulfurous lakes and fiery brimstone. To this day, I’m not quite sure what brimstone is. It sounds like the secret cooking method for really great pizza crust at BJ’s.

I was a child of the ‘70s and ‘80s, so My Jesus isn’t so much white as he is off-white, a suntanned, bearded combination of Chuck Norris and crossover superstar Kris Kristofferson.

My Jesus has a gentle smile and he’s usually kneeling and playing with children. But he also has a square jaw, thick arms and broad shoulders. If the Promised Land had a football team, my Jesus could probably start at middle linebacker. So if you’re not buying his message of peace, hope and understanding, he’s more than capable of delivering an enlightened forearm shiver with 4.4 closing speed.

Sandals. My Jesus also has sandals, and not those crap seasonal flip-flops you get at K-Mart. My Jesus rocks a pair of quality leather bound footwear, with multiple straps for heel and ankle support. A pair of sandals like that could set you back up to $70 on Amazon. (I only know that because I just went to Amazon.com and typed “Jesus sandals.”)

You almost always see Jesus in a white robe, probably with a red sash draped over a shoulder. I prefer this look because it makes my Jesus look like My Super Jesus. Occasionally someone will draw him in a brown robe or even a blue one. I just imagine the cartoonist had an off day, or received a special request to match the sofa pattern in some saintly old woman’s living room.

People like Megyn Kelly don’t want to imagine that woman’s living room, or any part of an afterlife where someone might be in charge that doesn’t look, act and sound exactly like Megyn Kelly.

Though Megyn probably thinks the only thing worse is Lebron James coming down her chimney.